


Acquiescence

by dissatisfied starlight (facelesshellion)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Canon-Typical Cannibalism, Eddie Brock Loves Venom Symbiote, Human Disaster Eddie Brock, Implied Cannibalism, Multi, Other, Sweet Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Symbiote Disaster Venom, alien diplomacy is letting a maneating symbiote run free b/c that's less trouble than contacting, alternate title:, i haven't seen infinity war b/c i don't like most of the MCU anymore, playing fast and loose with canon, set in a hypothetical future where no one died in infinity war, so this is just a 'nebulous post-infinity war' universe lol, the appropriate galactic authorities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-09-19 18:08:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17006586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facelesshellion/pseuds/dissatisfied%20starlight
Summary: Brock rips open a container of raw chicken thighs, picks one up, and, after a somewhat disgusted look, shoves it into his mouth.Whole.“What the fuck.”For a split second, he doesn’t chew. It’s in his mouth - and clearly, Brock is unhappy about that. But his shoulders straighten, and suddenly he’s barely biting down into it before he’s swallowing, hands picking up a second and third and shoveling them into his maw. Bones and all.“Is his jaw unhinging?” Bruce asks, fascinated. “Look, that’s - mouths aren’t supposed to open that far.”Tony, green and full of regret, says, “Explain why, out of all of the shit I’ve seen, this is what's closest to making me lose my lunch.”Natasha says, “You haven’t even had breakfast, though.”





	1. eddie doesn't really have control of his life but what else is new

**Author's Note:**

> HEY ALL how's it going 
> 
> i should know better than to start another fic when i still have another one that i'm negligent in updating, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ this one isn't meant to be super long 
> 
> i saw venom and loved it, and i was like "hm how can i protect this human-symbiote bond and make sure they're never bothered by anyone ever when they do in fact eat people?" and that led to "what avengers would be cool with people-eating and which ones would not be" - i have no idea how either of those will really get incorporated but we'll have a good time getting there i bet 
> 
> hope you enjoy! thanks for stopping by~

Despite planting the bug weeks ago, none of them have had time to look at any of the footage. It’s all locked up in a file on Tony’s personal servers, ready for review, but there’s always another emergency. You’d think that after facing an intergalactic criminal threatening to destroy the entire universe, with most of the population surviving through sheer luck, a species could get their shit together for a month or two.

Not humans. Give them an ocean, and they’ll find a way to set it on fire.

The Avengers, though closer to normal than they’ve been in years, have been run ragged. The stress is one of many strains on their already tender relationships. Steve and Tony are acidic on a good day, downright cruel on anything else, and Bruce and Natasha still can’t look each other in the eyes - talk about office romances gone wrong. Thor is uncharacteristically lethargic, balancing the responsibilities of being a wayward king with the obligations of protecting the planet under his protection. Clint has earned his retirement ten times over but won’t go home, pushing himself further every time they’re called out.

And that’s only looking at the original members’ relationship troubles. Rhodey, Sam, Bucky, Wanda, Scott, Hope, Stephen, Peter - they have their own inter- and intrapersonal issues, too. The war with Thanos wasn’t easy on anyone. Just because they have more bodies than ever before doesn’t mean the work they have to do gets any easier.

The egos, as usual, don’t help either. Between the chaotic mess of Earth post-galactic war and the many levels of their interpersonal bullshit, they’ve had to prioritize what messes to clean up first.

Carlton Drake’s mess barely registered when it happened. Tony can vaguely remember thinking it was nice that they didn’t have to send anyone out because the dumbass had blown himself up - a generosity that was a stark foil to the man Drake had been in real life. Tony always knew the man was garbage underneath that angelic face, but outside of a vindictive sense of satisfaction, it was mostly forgotten about.

And then Daredevil had passed on a tip from a friend of a friend, that San Francisco has been quieter than usual. As in - the “criminals dying left and right” kind of quieter. Apparently there were whispers of a monster, or a vigilante, or a cannibal - Natasha didn’t hear anything conclusive from her contacts, and breaking into the locals’ systems wasn’t much more helpful. The deaths were messy, but not necessarily anything inhuman - though Steve argued with the utmost confidence that some of the marks could only be made by claws. Some organs MAY have been missing - and how they couldn’t be 100% sure on that, Tony isn’t sure he wants to know - which implies either an organ harvesting organization or a real-life Hannibal. The deaths are consistently horrible people, though, and nothing ties them together other than their scuminess.

Murderers, rapists, pedophiles, abusers - no, this monster doesn’t go for anything less than the absolute bottom of the barrel. It’s not the usual serial killer MO. It reeks more of a vigilante gone radical. Like if Spider-Man was a jaded, disgusting, people-eater.

In between arguments (excuse him - trade negotiations and treaty discussions) with other planets, keeping the world from descending into complete entropy, and eating a protein bar here or there, they took turns looking into it. Bruce eventually finds out that a semi-infamous ex-TV host, Eddie Brock, was somehow mixed up in the Carlton Drake bullshit.

There’s some footage of him during those couple of days that is damning, to say the least. He’s shown breaking into Drake’s HQ with the help of the now-deceased Dr. Skirth, followed by a subsequent breakdown at a fancy restaurant (where he /eats a live lobster what the fuck-). There’s a short clip of him and /something/ kicking the shit out of Drake’s personal SWAT team, and then grainy footage of a battle between two huge /somethings/, before a body is hurled into the bay.

Eddie Brock was admitted to the hospital, hours later, soaking wet, with broken ribs and a severe case of shock. According to his medical records, he was kept for a week for two reasons.

The first: he had apparently been at the hospital earlier that day, and his organs had all been rotting. At this second trip, he was healthier than anyone over the age of thirty had a right to be, with a heart that gleamed like a new Ferrari.

The second: after they told him his organs had miraculously /regrown/, he apparently burst into tears and made some comments that brought his mental stability into question. They kept him in the psych ward for the second half of the week, the doctor’s disagreeing over a diagnosis of major depression, schizophrenia, or schizoaffective disorder. All of which had to be googled before any of them knew more than the bare basics.

Since the mess started with Drake, Tony did digging on that end too. A lot of Drake’s information was gone forever - long-since purged since the company tanked. Brock’s articles about Drake’s human experimentation is the only concrete thing he finds, which is infuriating. It’s not like Drake’s systems had ever been good, if he had just gotten there a few weeks earlier he would’ve had all the information he could ever need -

But. Priorities.

There’s mentions of “symbiotes” - whether symbiotes are artificial or natural or alien, Tony can’t glean from the scraps he was able to find. Human experimentation was definitely involved, and from what he can tell, it seems like Drake was trying to enhance humans by shoving a parasite at them and seeing what happened. One of the many reasons Tony prefers mechanical science - biology is disgustingly imprecise. So much observation, not much doing.

The notes say this much: it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for Brock to still be carrying Drake’s tapeworm or for that tapeworm to have a hankering for human flesh.

This all leads back to the bugs placed at Brock’s place. Clint happened to be on the west coast for a week, and he was able to plant them when Brock was out at the farmer’s market he frequents weekly. Tony’s inventions, since their knowledge of the universe has expanded, have joined a whole different league than ever before. His bugs? State of the art, even for the rest of the galaxy. They’re virtually untraceable, recharge themselves automatically, and upload the footage to his private cloud hourly.

So when things were busy, it was easy to leave them go and not worry about Drake’s bullshit. Weeks later, though, there’s hours upon hours upon hours of footage to go through to see what the hell in the world is up with Eddie Brock. They finally have enough projects and missions offloaded that he can’t justify ignoring Brock’s situation any longer. If it’s an alien threat, it’s their jurisdiction.

Bruce and Natasha join him, because everyone knows he’ll get distracted without supervision. Plus, three sets of eyes catch more details than one, no matter how observant Tony can be when he’s focused. In this case, it’s probably a good thing Bruce and Natasha can’t look at each other. They’ll be staring intently at the screen to avoid each other, which means Tony can let his thoughts drift a little more. He has so much to deal with that this really should be offloaded onto someone else’s who’s slept in the past week, but after (being proven /right/ because he’s always right) Thanos, he can’t quite shake the need to be involved in anything involving extraterrestrials.

“So,” he claps his hands together and smiles, close-lipped, at them. “Bugs were placed in the entryway, in the curtains, in the bathroom window, and in the bedroom. We’ll start with the entryway and curtains and only move to the bathroom or bedroom if we have just cause. Because apparently even suspected cannibals have rights - “

“Please,” Bruce begs. “Not this argument again. Privacy is a right, Tony. We’re already pushing it by recording him without his knowledge.”

“Well, it’s not like I’ll get arrested for it,” Tony says snippily. “If we had something like, oh, I don’t know, a set of regulations, that would lay out consequences for morally repugnant behavior in powerful people, just maybe--”

Natasha slams her travel mug against the table in front of them, like a judge with their gavel. “It’s way too early for your high horse. Knock it off.”

Tony starts the footage without another word, handing the remote to Natasha immediately. She’ll know when to fast forward better than he or Bruce would - they’re more detail-oriented and would get caught up in something dumb, like analyzing Brock’s shoe choice for the day rather than what they’re actually looking for.

The first thing Tony notices is that his apartment is a dump. Like, worse than any of the safehouses they’ve used since first forming back in the early 2010’s. It’s small, the lighting is shit, and clearly Brock has more important things to do than take out the overflowing trash or clean up the bits of food scattered across the floor. It must sting to have fallen from semi-famous mudraker to an underpaid line cook.

Natasha throttles the remote until Brock walks through the front door. He’s loaded down with grocery bags, one hand shoving a Hershey bar into his mouth, and is saying through the bites, “I swear, they’re just like tater tots - They were all out! What did you want me to do?”

He kicks the door shut behind him and drops the bags, sighing and then subsequently choking on the chocolate he’s still shoving down his throat.

“C’mon, sweetheart -” He swallows and grimaces, turning away from the wrapper his hand is insistently pressing against his cheek. “Look, we got chicken. You like chicken! Yeah, dead, sorry, but - I know, but we can’t go out tonight.”

He finally takes the wrapper with his other hand and tosses it behind him. “I’ll get us something nice on payday. Yep, two days. Two days and I’ll get you a lobster. All fresh’n shit, yeah?”

Brock’s smiling as he starts putting groceries away, humming every once in awhile like he’s acknowledging someone else talking. He chimes into the imaginary conversation with noncommittal answers like, “yeah, that’s good,” or “nah, you’re not feelin’ that. What about that house show? You liked that, didn’tcha?”

It’s extremely off putting. Even Natasha looks disconcerted.

“I swear if this guy is just a lunatic, I’m going to lose it,” Tony breaks the silence, inelegant as always. “I am not watching weeks’ worth of some nutjob talking to the voices in his head.”

“Rude,” Bruce chides. “He’s obviously sick. You’re the one who said his medical files showed a history of mental illness, with a recent re-diagnosis- you could be a little more compassionate.”

Tony grumbles.

On screen, Brock is picking up the last bag. He leans in and sniffs it - with a weary sigh, he goes, “You’re really going to make me do this, aren’t you.” There’s no answer - obviously - but Brock responds anyway. “You gotta let me know before it gets this bad - we can work something else out. Compromise, remember?”

Natasha pauses the video a split second after he says that. “Do you see that?” She points at Brock’s shoulder. “The shadow. That wasn’t there before.”

“Timestamp, FRIDAY. We’ll come back to it, let’s keep going.”

She starts it again. Brock rips open a container of raw chicken thighs, picks one up, and, after a somewhat disgusted look, shoves it into his mouth.

Whole.

“What the fuck.”

For a split second, he doesn’t chew.

It’s in his mouth - and clearly, Brock is unhappy about that. But his shoulders straighten, and suddenly he’s barely biting down into it before he’s swallowing, hands picking up a second and third and shoveling them into his maw. Bones and all.

“Is his jaw unhinging?” Bruce asks, fascinated. “Look, that’s - mouths aren’t supposed to open that far.”

Tony, green and full of regret, says, “Explain why, out of all of the shit I’ve seen, this is what's closest to making me lose my lunch.”

Natasha says, “You haven’t even had breakfast, though.”

She’s also interested. No wonder her and Bruce fucked - they’re both weird as shit.

Brock keeps going until the pack is empty - and then there’s a second one, and he’s going to town again.

Finally, the torture stops. Brock licks his lips with a tongue that is inhumanly long, collecting a streak of chocolate that had been left high up on his left cheekbone. While licking his hands clean, he growls, making a noise that sounds like nothing human.

In his original voice, no trace of an inhuman snarl, he responds, “I’m sorry about the damn tots - if you really don’t like the waffle kind, we’ll get better ones tomorrow.” He wanders over to the freezer and pulls out the bag of fries he had just put in there. He parks himself on the couch - of course neither of the bugs can see him clearly from that angle, which is just their luck, fuck you Clint - and tears open the bag.

The next hour is him tossing fries into the air and trying to catch them with his mouth, interspersed with bits of one-sided conversation. The silences are generally accompanied by a tongue that’s longer than his arm - said tongue grabs any fries that don’t make it to his mouth. Even ones that are on the other side of the room.

Tony says, “So, the talking to himself makes me think crazy. But the steel stomach and freaky tongue make me think not crazy. Or, well, not as crazy as previously assumed.”

Bruce is on the edge of his seat, almost starry-eyed. “Look at that dexterity - If the symbiote - that’s what it must be, right? If it’s man-made, Drake’s scientists were better than I imagined. It would have to have - anteater? Maybe anteater DNA. Or a giraffe - I can’t think of any other mammals with tongues that have such fine motor abilities. Do you think it’s conscious or is he talking to it as a result of his illness? God, that dexterity is something - ”

“You know that isn’t my area, pookie. The extent of my experience with tongues like that is limited to weird anime porn.”

The pained look Natasha and Bruce exchange is enough to make Tony smirk.

The rest of that day isn’t anything special. It’s actually kind of pathetic. Brock and - whatever is inside of him - sit and chow on fries, and Brock bitches about House Hunters but makes no move to turn it off. Then he grumbles about always being hungry but doesn’t get up, lying facedown on the couch. Eventually, Brock’s breathing pattern signals sleep, and Natasha presses the fast forward button again.

For a few more days, it’s exactly the same. Brock does manage to find tater tots on day three, which are promptly dumped, still frozen, into his mouth. It’s unnerving to see him tilt his head back and open his jaw like a shark’s gaping maw, teeth sharper than they should be. He also eventually comes home and eats two live lobsters, as promised, which Tony has to look away for.

The rest is the same as that first day. It’s more boring than it has any right to be when there’s a parasitic potential-alien in the mix.

At the end of the second week of videos, though, a change occurs. Brock doesn’t leave the bedroom for a whole day. Tony, ignoring Bruce's disapproval, fires up the bedroom and bathroom footage.

In the bedroom, Brock wakes up around seven in the morning. He rolls over and looks like he’s thinking about falling back to sleep, before his eyes dart open. He bolts up, and there’s almost a manic grin on his face.

“Well hello there,” He says to no one. He holds out a hand, and something starts to pool in it. Black sludge spills out of his palm, dripping onto his thighs, and he laughs. Delighted, he scoops it up and nuzzles it. “Took you long enough. I was starting to think I’d never see you again. I thought I’d just have to deal with your constant complaining and hunger pangs.”

“ **We missed us, Eddie,** ” Something absolutely demonic says, startling all three of them. Natasha curses and rights her travel mug after knocking it over, and Bruce takes a few deep breath. The sludge ball, meanwhile, grows predatory teeth and large, chalk white eyes.

“Real words too. It's Christmas," He says, deadpan. He softens after a moment and says, quietly, "Yeah we missed us." He snorts when the sludge attaches itself to his face, temporarily hiding his features. When Eddie smacks a kiss to it, the black ball disperses into his skin. “Aw, sorry, is that - ?”

“ **Eddie missed us too,** ” It says - if Tony had to ascribe a tone to it, which is extremely hard to do when it sounds like every single person’s worst nightmare combined into one amalgam or horrific death - wonderingly. If anyone pressed, Tony would say it’s awed. A tendril of black creeps up Brock’s neck, curling around and around until it presses at his lips. “ **This is how you show affection. You want to give us affection.** ”

“Yeah, I mean,” Brock is suddenly flustered, scrubbing the back of his neck and looking at the ceiling. “I thought you died. We died. Our chance of being a ‘we’ died.”

“ **You want - ?** ”

“Of course I do!” He sounds almost offended, eyes darting back to the sludge slowly encasing him. “C’mon, I mean - we had a rocky start, but - “

“ **Perfect Eddie, perfect host, perfect us,** ” It chants, and a truly terrifying face, with so so many teeth appears next to Brock’s face. With painful slowness, it licks his face. From chin to temple, a tongue the size of Brock’s arm slides up and down and up and down before retreating. The head then nuzzles Brock’s face as it repeats itself a few times. After a second of hesitation, Brock returns it, petting the thing with the hand that isn’t encased in sludge.

After a few minutes of petting, Brock says, “Next time we can skip the licking part of the reunion. Yeah?”

“ **No.** ”

“It's kinda nasty.”

“ **Non-negotiable.** ”

“We're gonna have to compromise - “

“ **I’ll compromise your face.** ”

“Man, c’mon - “

“ **Feed me and I’ll consider it.** ”

“You’re going to make us fat.”

“ **We’d be so soft,** ” It croons, somehow pulling Brock to his feet. Brock stumbles and the black mass pulls him back by his scruff so he doesn’t fall over, before starting to strip him. “ **Cushy stomach protects organs better. And bigger Venom could take on bigger bad guys.** ”

“Let’s get us back to full health before we worry about bigger bad guys,” Brock mumbles. He seems as surprised as Tony feels when ‘V’ pours out of his pores and quickly becomes a pair of jeans, a t shirt, and a jacket. “Are you doing that - “

“ **Less money on frivolous human things. More money for tater tots and chocolate.** ”

“Clothes aren’t frivolous - “

“ **Food, Eddie! We’re hungry.** ”

Brock laughs and says, “You’re awake for five minutes and you’re already hungry?”

“ **Not my fault you eat like a wimp. We have to eat better to heal. Let’s go find food.** ”

“Sushi?” They duck out of the window and disappear from the cameras’ sights. 

Tony takes the remote out of Natasha’s slack hands and shuts the screens off. “So. Not crazy. Anyone else wanna take five? I could use five. Hell, let’s make it ten.”


	2. eddie is somewhat responsible even when he has a needy symbiote telling him to play hooky #honorStudent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Aw, babe.” Brock dumps the batter into a pan and shoves it into the oven. “I would’ve let you lick the spoon even if you didn’t flatter me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) in the future, never expect an update this soon just FYI - this is just because i was procrastinating from cleaning my place yesterday (which i highly regret but hopefully you'll all enjoy the fruits of my irresponsibility) 
> 
> 2) thank you for all of the kudos!!! thank you for the kind comments!!! this is the first time i've had such a fast response to a fic i've written. i hope you all continue to enjoy this and i can continue to give you something worthwhile~ 
> 
> my tumblr's dissatisfied-starlight if you'd like to talk over there - i don't go on it much but i try to check it sometimes to see if there's any messages. thanks everyone again!

“It can’t be artificial,” Bruce says when they reconvene. “I mean, that’s a conscious person. Drake’s people were good, but they weren’t good enough to make a living creature that’s clearly more than instinct. Artificial intelligence - definitely possible. But a new organism? A new conscious organism?”

“It’s a ball of slime.”

“It thinks,” Bruce continues, bewildered. “We’ve seen - of course - plenty of aliens, but nothing that deviates from a humanoid form so drastically. How can it possibly - it’s incredible. And it lives inside of Eddie Brock.”

“Why though?” Natasha asks. She tilts her head back and shrugs at their looks. “It clearly can think. It wants Brock to eat, constantly, from what we’ve seen. And there’s specific things it wants him to eat. So why does the symbiote need a host? Is that an inherent biological need, or…?”

Tony tosses a wrench up in the air shrugs as he catches it, using it as a back scratcher as he talks. “Might not have the digestive system necessary for our planet. Might not breathe air. Might feed off of some hormone or chemical the human body produces when eating those foods rather than the foods themselves. Might not like our sun. If we’re assuming it’s an alien, there could be a number of reasons for holing up inside of one of our natives. We’d need more information to speculate.”

“FRIDAY, start keeping a log of any abnormal physical characteristics that Eddie shows,” Bruce orders. He’s tapping a finger against the rim of his glasses as he peers at the still-frame of Brock sleeping with a sleek black figure wrapped around his airway, acting like a neck pillow. “If he looks flushed, is using the bathroom more frequently, sleeping more, if you notice he has an abnormal heart rate - mark it all down. It might be useful later.”

“Shall we get back to it?” Tony asks, all false cheer. “Maybe we’ll get more than Brock making goo-goo eyes at the contents of a paint can.”

“How much of this are we going to watch?” Natasha asks as they start to settle back into their seats. Her travel mug, pale pink with black splotches of paint splattered across it, has been refilled, and a pair of fuzzy socks cover her feet. If they weren’t stuck in the austere basement of their current HQ that Tony has taken over as his “until things calm down” lab, she’d look almost cozy. “Brock’s clearly a loser, maybe a serial killer, and almost definitely an alien’s host - shouldn’t we bring him in anyway?”

“And we will,” Tony agrees. “But if we watch a few more hours, FRIDAY will almost definitely be able to pare down the footage we have to directly watch. She needs some time and our feedback to determine what’s worthy of investigation and what’s more of the same crap. After that, it’ll hopefully be cut to just a few hours of relevant data, which will, hopefully, help us bring him in without getting our asses kicked.”

“Hopefully,” Natasha repeats doubtfully.

“Life is uncertain and nothing means anything, what do you want from me?” He starts the next set of footage without waiting for her response.

Brock walks out of the bedroom and is already laughing, an oozy mess trailing behind him. It looks like he’s stepping in gooey puddles and dragging it forward, but his steps are unbothered and the ooze never lessens or leaves any debris behind.

“ **Eddie, we’re tired.** ”

“Have to go to work, sweetheart.”

“ **No, go back to bed.** ”

“Believe me - if I could, I would. I have to go make money so we can eat.”

A wordless groan leaves the symbiote, and Brock laughs harder. He starts his ancient coffee maker and wanders to the fridge. “What do we want for breakfast? Eggs?”

“ **Disgusting.** ”

“Eggs it is.”

“ **No!** ”

Brock has to grab the counter when the symbiote starts to try to drag him back to the bedroom, crawling along the ground inch by inch. Brock narrowly misses slamming his jaw against the counter, crashing to the floor. “You don’t even LIKE work or eggs - Eddie said we could do whatever we want, so we should do whatever we want. And we want sleep.”

“We want to be able to eat,” Eddie counters, rather calmly for being hogtied. HIs legs snap to attention underneath him and start walking him back to the bedroom. “If you’re fine with us starving, I’m cool.”

“ **If you’d just let us -** “

“We aren’t eating the neighbor's dog!”

“ **We could!** ”

The bickering continues, Eddie grabbing onto the doorframe with one hand while the rest of his body strains towards the bed. Eventually, he goes limp and the symbiote melts out of his chest to pool over him.

“ **On my planet, labor was reserved for the weak. We aren’t weak anymore and therefore shouldn’t have to work.** ”

“Klyntar was pretty fucked up, from what I can tell, so I’m not sure we should be using that as a basis for our day-to-day life,” Eddie counters. “Besides, labor can be fun - “

“ **Your own memories show you’re lying.** ”

“Yeah, okay, it fucking sucks,” He admits shamelessly. “Especially this job. I hate cooking for other people. And having a perfectly fine burger sent back because it had lettuce on it when they’re on a ‘low-vegetable diet’ makes me want to shoot myself - “

“ **No!** ”

“I wouldn’t,” Brock immediately soothes, petting the symbiote. “I just mean it sucks. But I do it to take care of us. Keep a roof overhead, keep you flush in chocolate - our society isn’t like Klyntar.”

Tony briefly pauses it to say, “FRIDAY, send a message to Thor. Ask if he’s heard of ‘Klyntar’ - not sure if it’s a planet name or a species.” FRIDAY pings him an affirmative, and he lets the footage continue.

Brock finishes with, “And I have to pull my weight in this too, don’t I? You keep us healthy, I keep us fed and sheltered. I won’t be a parasite either.”

The symbiote wraps around Brock’s wrist and crawls up his arm, finally allowing Brock to stand up. “ **Okay. It would be better if you could do what you actually want to for compensation, because we deserve the best, but I understand now.** ”

“I’m working on it - the other good part about this job is that it gives me an ear to the ground.”

The symbiote perks up. Tony can’t explain how he knows - it doesn’t have shoulders to straighten, or a head to lift, but it looks like it has a shiver running across it, and it seems close to what humans do when something catches their interest. “ **For bad people?** ”

Brock points a single finger gun at it, pulling eggs out of the fridge. “Got it in one. I’m working on getting a domain name for a website now - ”

“ **And we’re going to be good.** ”

“You bet your ass we are. No more Drakes in our city.”

“ **Our city,** ” It purrs. “ **Ours ours ours -** “

“Yes, right, now shut up and eat. No time to cook anymore since we had to have a temper tantrum.“ He tosses a few eggs up into the air, and the symbiote envelops them before any hit the ground.

Natasha is fast forwarding past a boring couple of days when Steve and Bucky come down through the elevator. Steve still hasn’t learned how to use a razor, apparently, and Bucky looks as haggard and stressed as ever. Tony can’t really blame him - Bucky, at one point, had been content living in a one-bedroom apartment with little more than a paper bag of plums. Now he’s freshly post-war once more and stuck babysitting Mr. Righteous I’ve-Done-Nothing-Wrong-Ever-How-Dare-You-Imply-Anything-Else. Tony would be stressed too if he had to deal with that on top of barely-healed brain damage.

“Is this Eddie Brock?” He asks, pointing at the screen. Natasha had paused it at a picturesque moment of Brock shoveling fried rice into his face. Its date stamp says that it’s two weeks since the last video they watched - Something’s different, though, which is likely why she paused there.

On screen, Brock’s a mess. He looks like he hasn’t showered in days, and his beard is choppy and has some weird gristle in it. Despite that, he looks to be in good health. His eyes are clear, and the symbiote is draped around his shoulders like a shawl, an extra-long tendril curled around one of Brock’s pinkies. His hands are curled around a takeout container, and his mouth is once again opened just wide enough to look unnatural, and more than wide enough to fit a couple cups of rice in.

Tony rips his gaze away and nods, trying to keep his expression as neutral as he can. “Yep. Our resident maybe-cannibal.”

“No luck yet?”

“The only things he can currently be convicted of are being disgusting, harboring an alien of some kind, and wasting my time. If I wanted to watch wholesome domesticity, I’d watch Full House.”

“Full House doesn’t have parasitic aliens, though,” Bruce says.

“That you know of,” Natasha points out, sounding quite reasonable. “The Olsen twins are pretty creepy.”

“Anyway,” Tony continues. “You two need something? Or did you miss my sparkling personality? I know I’ve been busy kiddos, but Dad’ll make it to the big ballgame, I swear - “

“We thought we’d offer our help,” Steve cuts him off. “It can’t be that exciting. If anyone wants a break, Bucky and I can tag in.”

Bruce immediately stands up. “Sure, that’d be great, Steve. I can go talk to Thor and some of the other Asgardians to see if they’ve heard of Klyntar while you keep on with the footage. I might reach out to Quill and his crew, too. They’ve gotten around more than Thor has, from what I can tell.”

“With a face like that? Thor’s been around plenty, I’m sure.” Tony grins at their exasperation. “Oh come on, we all know he hasn’t always been the stern, mystical king he wants everyone to see him as. If anyone other than Brock’s had some kinky parasitic loving, I’d put money on - “

Bruce is already walking out the door, and Bucky looks like he regrets letting Steve talk him into it. Steve, too, already has his “I’m getting a migraine” face on. Neither of them make any motions to leave, and Tony, in the spirit of reconciliation and charity, doesn’t finish his thought. He has More-ON (a DUM-E clone he made a few weeks ago when he needed an extra hand and everyone else was busy) bring over another seat, and Steve and Bucky settle in.

“Anything we should know before we start?” Steve asks.

“Nothing in particular. It’s all weird. You’ll see.”

Natasha presses play, and Brock resumes shoveling food into his mouth at a pretty gross pace. The symbiote creeps out of his collar and proceeds to swallow the rest of it - container and all - whole.

“Dude!” Brock yells, dropping his fork. “Spit it out! You’re gonna make us barf!” When the symbiote keeps chewing, Brock grabs it and tries to pry its mouth open. “My body can’t digest plastic, come on - “

“ **So hungry, Eddie,** ” It whines. The mouth opens enough for Brock to shove his hands in and pry the takeout container, tossing it aside. A huge puddle of saliva pours out of the container onto the floor, viscous and slightly green. “ **We didn’t eat because you said not to and we want to be good but we’re so hungry.** ”

Steve goes, “What the - ?” while Bucky’s eyes widen. Tony pretends he didn’t have the same reaction at first and laughs at them.

“That’s the alien?”

“Yep,” Natasha pops the “p” and sips from her mug. “Is it weird that I’m starting to think it’s kind of cute? It’s like a weird dog.”

“That’s not a damn dog,” Bucky says. “That’s a. I don’t know what. I’ll have nightmares.”

“I thought your brain couldn’t make dreams anymore,” Tony says curiously. “Did the princess fix that or - ?”

“No, this is just freaky enough that I can’t imagine not waking up screaming later.”

On screen, Brock is tugging the symbiote into a weird one-armed hug and standing up. “I know, I know. Um. Okay. Takeout’s not doing it, so…” He goes back into the kitchen and fiddles around, opening and shutting cabinets and the fridge. “We have half a chicken - “ a loud CRUNCH interrupts him. “Okay, we had half a chicken. I can make brownies? You’ve definitely earned a treat. I've eaten worse than brownies for dinner.”

“ **Brownies? You like brownies.** ”

“You will too. They’re chocolate.”

“ **We LOVE chocolate. Let’s make brownies.** ”

It’s weirdly endearing to watch the symbiote become an apron while Brock looks up a recipe on his phone. He says, “Alright, we need cocoa powder, vegetable oil - “

“ **Vegetables come in liquid form?** ”

“Not really? I don’t actually know how oil works. Look it up on Google while I get this ready.”

Brock’s stirring in the dry ingredients when the symbiote tosses the phone into the living room with a huff. “ **Why didn’t we beat the bad guys tonight, Eddie? We could’ve. They were bad, and we were hungry. It would’ve been good.** ”

Brock slowly releases the spoon and sighs. “I figured we’d have to talk about it. I know your solution is bite bad guys’ heads off, but sometimes we can’t just do that. I would argue almost all of the time we can’t do that.”

“ **Why not? We’re clearly the strongest. We can do what we want, and since we want to do good, we also have the ethical high ground. And who would stop us?** ”

“That’s not - Just because no one can stop us doesn’t mean we should do something.“

“ **You wanted to hurt them too though.** ”

“I did,” Brock admits. “This is - These guys are bad news, babe. They’ve hurt a lot of good people, just to get money. It makes me mad. But if we kill them, other people will rally to their cause.”

“ **Martyrdom. When killing someone makes other people sympathetic to their cause.** ”

“Yeah. That. I don’t want these fuckers getting any sympathy. Which means we have to take them down my way. Pen is mightier than the sword and all that.”

“ **Will your words have that much of an effect?** ”

“Honestly?” Brock picks up the spoon and starts stirring again. “No idea. Don’t exactly have as much sway as I did before, and even when I did, changes were minimal. Getting Mr. Jimmy Caesoro and some of his goons arrested tonight’ll work well in our favor, though. So we still did good tonight. And I’ll write my article, see if anyone will print it, and we’ll go from there. And hopefully that legislation won’t go through.”

“ **I want to read your article. You’re very smart.** ”

“Aw, babe.” Brock dumps the batter into a pan and shoves it into the oven. “I would’ve let you lick the spoon even if you didn’t flatter me.”

“ **Nice.** ” The symbiote does wrap its tongue around the proffered spoon four times. “ **Can we lick the bowl too?** ”

“I appreciate you asking. Yes, we can.”

“ **I was going to no matter what you said.** ”

“I figured. You didn’t have to say it, I almost thought you were being sweet.”

The symbiote cackles and sweeps its tongue over the bowl, lapping up most of its contents. Brock licks some stray batter off of his arm while setting a timer on his phone.

Natasha pauses the feed and says, “So. There’s implications of potential cannibalism. The symbiote being hungry and tying that to Brock not letting him kill whatever ‘bad guys’ they came across, as well as them openly discussing killing people.”

“Openly discussing NOT killing people,” Steve corrects. “The conversation was about the parasite wanting to kill people but not doing so. Brock clearly has it on a leash - at this point, at least. Do we know how much control the parasite has over him? How much free will does he have?”

“As far as I can tell, Brock’s got some decent veto power,” Tony says. “Either that or the symbiote makes him think he does. Unless there’s some major brainwashing happening behind the scenes, it seems pretty damn consensual.”

“Could still be brainwashing. The thing has access to his entire body, and there’s clearly more than just verbal conversations happening between them which indicates a neural component. It might be a slow, Stockholm Syndrome type of situation.”

Bucky’s making a face that Tony is interested in. “What’s on your mind, sarge? Looking contemplative over there.”

He flushes when the others look over too - as he always does when someone other than Steve is paying direct attention to him. “They just. They seem happy. It’s kind of sweet. And the - symbiote? Whatever it is. It’s happy too. And it cares about Brock.”

They’re all quiet - even Tony has learned to shut up until Barnes completely finishes talking, because it takes him a little while sometimes. He finally adds, “It doesn’t look like any brainwashing I know of, at least. People who take advantage of other people don’t normally worry about being good.”

It’s hard to argue when the paused screen shows the symbiote looking at Brock with crinkled, pleased eyes. It’s a look that transcends the cultural barriers that Tony’s been becoming more and more aware of since “first contact” occurred. That’s how he looks at Peter, how Steve and Bucky look at each other, how Natasha looks at Pepper when she thinks no one’s looking, how Thor pointedly avoids looking like when he’s around Bruce - it’s fondness and affection and adoration and love, so much of it that it can’t stop from spilling out through their eyes.

Tony savagely fast forwards so they don’t have to look at it anymore. “Come on, guys, we’re looking for a killer, here. No getting attached now. Not unless we clear them.”


	3. eddie and his symbiote DTR

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony looks over and Steve and goes, “Oh for the love of - You have to leave. You’re compromised. I can’t believe - for God’s sake, Rogers, that is almost definitely a people eater. There is no way in hell something that goddamn big and with that many teeth isn’t a goddamn predator! Don’t look at it like that!” 
> 
> “It’s cute!” Steve protests. “You can’t tell me you don’t think it’s cute.” 
> 
> “It’s horrific in literally every possible way. This is a love story based on cannibalism. It’s fucked up.” 
> 
> “They’re sweet, and we don’t know - ” 
> 
> “They probably EAT people, for fuck’s sake - “

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol updating way earlier than expected - still haven't fully cleaned my apartment but i cleaned it enough that i don't feel like a disgusting mess anymore, so there's that! 
> 
> thank you for all of the comments and kudos!! i'm so glad people are enjoying this fic - i'm having a great time writing it and i hope you guys enjoy this chapter too~

They’re slowly chipping away at footage - it’s a lot of the same, with a few notable variations. Brock’s article did end up getting published, which led to more evenings spent with him typing at an ancient laptop while his symbiote dramatically complained about being bored. Brock’s ex-fiancée stops by with her new fiancé, which is significantly less awkward than Tony would’ve imagined. His exes meeting never went half as well. 

“You live in a pigsty - is that your underwear?” Anne Weying points, her face as disgusted as Tony has felt since receiving his front row tickets to the life of Edward Brock. “How do you live like this?” 

“One, it’s not like I knew I was having company,” Brock says defensively. “And two, uh. What part of me, at any point, made you think I wouldn’t live like this? You lived with me, you know I don’t care about shit.” 

Her face is still horrified, but she nods. “That’s. Really fair. I still think you should clean.” 

“I don’t know how - seriously! My entire post-college life was spent living with you, who stress-cleans. And you were always stressed. This whole needing to be responsible thing is completely new territory.” 

“Good thing you’re an adult who can critically think - and as a bonus, you’re an adult who has YouTube to show you how to do anything you could possibly think of! It’s almost like you have all the tools to be self-sufficient.” 

He mimes being stabbed in the heart. “Yeah yeah yeah, of course. You’re right.” He turns to Dr. Dan Lewis, the new fiance, and says, “You know, she really hates lemon-scented shit. Just. If you ever need that information. Maybe when she’s being mean. Just, you know.” 

Lewis laughs, not noticing Anne sticking her tongue out at Brock, and says, “I’ll keep it in mind, thanks man. You’ve been feeling alright since - well, since?” 

Brock nods. “Yeah, just peachy. Not dying, as far as I can tell.” 

“I’d really recommend coming in for a check-up. Maybe get a few scans done, just to - “ 

The symbiote bursts out of Brock’s chest, shrieking, “ **NO DOCTORS NO SCANS NO HOSPITAL NO SCANS NO SCANS -** “ 

Without missing a beat, Anne screams, “I fucking knew it!” As it keeps shrieking and pulling Brock backwards, she turns to Dan, holding out her hand for a high-five. He provides it, grinning. 

Brock doesn’t look surprised either - he mostly just looks exhausted. “You guys couldn’t just. Say that you knew. You had to get us all worked up.” 

“ **WE WILL NOT RETURN TO THE DEATH MACHINE.** ” 

“No one’s putting us in the death machine,” Brock says tiredly. “Calm down.” 

“I can’t believe you would not only lie to me, but think that you could get away with lying to me.” She shakes her head in mock-disappointment. “Eddie, you’ve always been a terrible liar. ” 

“You are pretty bad at it,” Lewis agrees, turning sheepish when Brock looks at him. “I mean, you kept saying ‘we’ all the time. You might want to keep an eye on that.” 

“ **Your friends are mean, Eddie,** ” The symbiote spits, curling around Brock’s waist. “ **Kick them out.** ” 

“We’ll leave after you tell us why you lied,” Anne says, crossing her arms. “You told me that Venom was gone. That he was dead via explosive rocket.” 

“And when I told you that, I thought they were,” Brock says, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I didn’t know until my second day in the hospital and the doctors said all the damage was fixed. They didn’t exactly have the time or energy to fix everything before dying - if they had died, I would’ve been dead in the hospital after a few days with how much of my insides were rotten goo. Since they had me on an IV, I’m guessing it gave us enough nutrients that my other could fix my organs.” 

Venom nods, agreeing. 

“And then after? It’s been weeks, Eddie.” 

Brock flushes and ducks his head. He mutters something the cameras don’t pick up. 

“What was that?” 

“I said,” He clears his throat and still doesn’t look at them. “I wanted Venom to myself for a bit. Okay? I wanted to get us sorted out before telling you guys. I’m still working out how to feed us so we both get what we need and don’t keel over, and I had to get a new job, and - I mean, V just recently started talking again. They needed some TLC.” 

Venom squeezes Brock tighter and corkscrews around his body until he reaches his face, leaning in to nuzzle under his chin. “ **Sappy host.** ” 

Lewis says, “Aw, that’s cute,” at the same time Anne goes, “I can’t believe I’ve been replaced by a parasite.” 

Brock says, “Okay, well, you weren’t replaced, that’s not what’s happening here - but also, you replaced me with a  _ doctor _ whose name rhymes with yours, and I ate a live lobster in front of a full restaurant. I was never going to win the breakup. Don’t be so smug.” 

Lewis repeats, “Aw.” 

The good thing about Anne and Lewis visiting is that some of their questions get answered. Anne is inquisitive, and they get a more accurate idea of what events occurred from her questions. FRIDAY takes plenty of notes for them and is slowly constructing a visual timeline for them to follow. 

The hilarious thing about them visiting is seeing the aftermath between Brock and his jealous Mrs. 

“ **Why would you say you didn’t win the breakup?** ” Venom asks, the minute the door shuts on the two. “ **We are clearly superior. And you’re happy. And you chose to stop pursuing Anne -** “ 

“I wasn’t pursuing her after we broke up.” 

“ **Regardless,** ” Venom plows through, tightening its grip on him. “ **You are a loser, but we are not. Why would you say we lost?** ” 

“Are you understanding the context? ‘Winning’ a breakup means - “ 

“ **It indicates the individual who is objectively doing better socially, career-wise, and romantically than the other individual with whom they had previously been in a relationship with. I still fail to see why you would think Anne is winning and why I would not be her ‘replacement’, as I am now occupying the role she used to play for you.** ” 

“Uh - I don’t exactly have a thriving social life, V. And my career is nonexistent, currently. Meanwhile, Anne is popular, has started a new, fulfilling job saving underprivileged individuals in the courtroom, and is dating Dan, who is very nice and successful on his own.” Brock waves a hand around him. “And you’re not - “ 

It cuts off as Natasha starts to fast forward. She gets a few minutes ahead before Steve lunges to snatch the remote out of her hands, looking at her in horror. “How can you - How are you not invested in this. I need to know how this discussion ends.”

She stares at him incredulously, holding the remote out of reach. “This isn’t one of your cheesy Hulu shows, Steve,” She says. “We don’t need to hear Brock DTR with his parasite.” 

“DTR?” Bucky asks. 

“Define the relationship,” Tony provides, eyes locked on the tension between Natasha and Steve. “It’s the awkward conversation you have with someone where you say ‘Are we friends? Are we fuck buddies? Are we more? I want to marry you but I won’t tell you that because I don’t want to be desperate so tell me what you want first so I can play it cool’ - that kind of thing.” 

“I think we do,” Steve argues, reaching back. “It would explain why they started killing people if their relationship changed. It could indicate the parasite having a greater influence over Brock.” 

“Listen, whether he’s fucking a parasite or a human or a dog, Brock’s actions are his own. We’ve all pretty much agreed that the parasite is likely not brainwashing him - that means it doesn’t matter if they’re more or not.” 

They tussle, briefly - which, considering they’re both superhuman, looks more like two wild dogs about to rip each others’ heads off. Steve emerges victorious and starts the feed again. 

Brock looks lost, and Venom is a tiny head that’s slowly growing in size in front of him, getting up into his face and in the process of yelling. 

“  **\- implying that this is not adequate! You - we - YOU deserve better than she can provide, and we can be that if you give us a chance, I can be that -** “ 

“Sweetheart!” Brock interrupts, cupping its face with both hands. “We’re not on the same page. Okay? You know that isn’t - Something’s getting lost in translation. Let’s - “ 

“ **Yes, let’s.** ” 

With that, Venom opens it’s maw and swallows Brock whole. 

Tony and Bucky both flinch back, and Steve looks like his heart’s been crushed. Natasha’s eyes are wide. Before they can react past absolute horror, a new creature emerges. 

Where Brock was standing, an eight or nine foot monster now stands. Beefy, black with striking white and silver veins, and Venom’s teeth and eyes - an even longer tongue, too, which Tony hadn’t even thought was possible. 

Tony could understand Natasha thinking the symbiote was cute. The longer you’re exposed to something, the more time your brain has to wrap around it, the more your brain then justifies its existence. He had been getting used to Venom, and he had been getting used to it and Brock’s domestic sentimentality. It had been getting harder and harder to imagine either of them being the killer they were looking for - Brock doesn’t look like he has his life in order enough to walk to the local Walmart, let alone keep his hands clean enough to not immediately sign a crime scene with his DNA. 

This thing, though - it could easily eat a person. This could eat a person without a sweat, without blinking, and the person being eaten wouldn’t be able to do shit. 

This is a threat. Tony’s blood starts racing just looking at it on a tiny screen. 

“ **O** h,” It says, like it’s having an epiphany. It’s both Venom and Brock’s voices speaking simultaneously, no pause in between. “We - **we did that**. Yes, of course, **we did**. For us. Yes, yes. **Eddie** didn’t **eat like a wimp** when he was **alone**. For us. **He did it for us**. **We didn’t know**. **We** didn’t know what **this was** , either, **but** **this** is it f **or us too**. 

“ **We’re** in this.  **Wholeheartedly** . Together. Ours  **ou** rs ours.  **Ours** .” 

Its arms wraps around itself, a half-growl half-purr rumbling in its chest. Hugging its torso tightly, the creature says, adoringly, “Love.  **Love us** . We  **love** us.” 

Tony looks over and Steve and goes, “Oh for the love of - You have to leave. You’re compromised. I can’t believe - for God’s sake, Rogers, that is almost definitely a people eater. There is no way in hell something that goddamn big and with that many teeth isn’t a goddamn predator! Don’t look at it like that!” 

“It’s cute!” Steve protests. “You can’t tell me you don’t think it’s cute.” 

“It’s horrific in literally every possible way. This is a love story based on cannibalism. It’s fucked up.” 

“They’re sweet, and we don’t know - ” 

“They probably EAT people, for fuck’s sake - “ 

Natasha abruptly grabs the remote out of Steve’s semi-lax hand and slams on the pause button. Tony turns and sees that its paused at a scene where Venom-Eddie has a hand dangerously close to its crotch and the other hand wrapped up in its tongue. Its hips are jutted out, and the look on its face is blissful. Three guesses as to what was about to go down, and the first two don’t count. Tony’s a little impressed at how quickly they got ramped up, but - 

Natasha says, firmly, “At the very least, we don’t have to see this part. I feel like enough of a voyeur already.” 

Tony goes, “No yeah, that’s completely fair and I agree. This is a little too hardcore for my tastes, I’m sure the rest of your guys’ heads would explode,” while trying desperately not to notice that Bucky looks a little disappointed. He really, really tries not to notice that. “I think we’ve watched enough that FRIDAY can flag any other footage that needs personal review. Give her a few hours and we’ll have that list compiled, and after we review that, we can figure out what the hell we’re going to do about this mess.” 

“Sounds good. Bruce has been gone for awhile,” Steve says, changing the subject. “Think he’s gotten anything from Thor about - what was it, Klyntar?” 

“Supposedly the symbiote’s home planet or species,” Tony clarifies. “It was mentioned in one of the first hours we watched. Context didn’t provide us with much, but - “ 

At that exact moment, like he has a goddamn homing beacon for being mentioned, Thor bursts in. Because they’re just lucky like that. Bruce is trailing slightly behind, looking strangely unconcerned. It’s always funny to see them together, because Thor, even with the new solemnity he wears like his old red cape, is enthusiastic, boisterous, and larger than life. Meanwhile, Bruce doesn’t have the patience to give a fuck about anything anymore - but he also doesn’t have the energy to do anything other than apathetically shrug most of the time. Whatever led to them crash landing on Earth with thousands of Asgardian refugees ended up being a bonding experience for the ages, because the only thing they’re missing is a pair of friendship bracelets. 

Tony’s only a little jealous. 

Imperiously, Thor says,  “Banner tells me that you have evidence of a Klyntar offspring residing on Earth. I myself have not encountered them, but from what Banner has said, this one is acting strangely. We must investigate.” 

“We’re already investigating,” Steve says. As if he was in charge of this operation - like Tony hadn’t been the one to coordinate the intelligence, then the bugs, and finally this little movie marathon. “What do you mean by strangely? What are Klyntars normally like?” 

Thor tilts his head and says, “Klyntar is a hive-mind, which is generally perceived as an invasive species. If this was a normal Klyntar offspring, it would not be alone, and humans would have been long wiped out. Earth’s resources would have been rapidly drained before the Klyntar left, leaving behind a bled husk, no more than an empty, soulless rock rotating around your sun.” At their wide-eyed looks, he adds, “But if that hasn’t happened yet, it’s unlikely to occur. It’s rare enough for any single instance of Klyntar to be alone. A single branch of Klyntar is nothing to fear.” 

Tony wheezes, clutching his chest. “Jesus, buddy, you can’t - Start with that part next time! Start with the ‘everything is fine’ part first!” The panic that rolled over him at having to head off another alien invasion, so soon after the previous one, while Earth is still piecing itself back together - yeah, Tony’s going to need a minute. 

He sits down and tunes out of the conversation, staring at the frozen, borderline pornographic image of Eddie Brock and his Klyntar symbiote. It’s hard to believe that the symbiote - which whines and complains like a toddler half of the time, and acts like an overly affectionate dog the rest of the time - is a part of something that could be a threat on the level of Thanos. 


	4. eddie is struggling with his new diet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan suddenly looks crushed. “Wait, does that - You’re saying that like you wouldn’t be happy to get an Alexa for Christmas.”
> 
> Brock looks equally crushed at having caused Dan any pain. Who can blame him, honestly, Dan Lewis has a face that's just asking to be squished by grandmas everywhere. “Aw, man, I - look, they’re always listening. It’s freaky, and with Venom, we can’t risk the men in black - ”
> 
> “No no, it makes sense. It’s fine.” Dan has the exact look on his face that Tony had when Pepper said she didn’t want a fifty-foot tall rabbit plush toy.
> 
> “Anyway,” Brock continues. “All that you and Siri need to know is that we’re healthy and only eating food that can be procured legally.” After a pause, he adds, “And is procured legally.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey all happy new year! hope 2019's off to a good start for everyone 
> 
> thank you! for all of the sweet comments! For all of the niceness! for all of the kudos! you're all very sweet and i appreciate it tons!! i hope you continue to enjoy and i hope i can continue to hold your interest 
> 
> this chapter's a bit of filler, but it sets the stage for the NEXT chapter which is going to be a fun one i think. i'll hopefully have that one out a little bit faster than this one (no promises though, work has been hell recently lol)

After Thor finishes reassuring everyone that Venom hasn’t destroyed the world yet and that means they’re in the clear, he stares at the screen for an uncomfortable amount of time. The rest of them shoot each other looks behind Thor’s back, waiting to see if he’ll come to any insightful conclusions. Steve in particular seems soothed by Thor’s words, already slotting Thor’s “they haven’t obliterated Earth yet” into his “this is a good man with a weird relationship and they’ve done nothing wrong” schema that Tony knows won’t waver without explicit video evidence of them gnawing on someone’s brain stem. 

Eventually, Thor says, “Klyntar don’t normally keep their hosts for very long. It’s difficult to translate their lifespans to the time lengths you’re familiar with, but from what I know of their biological needs, what humans can realistically provide, and how many of you there are - without some form of care and delicacy, Brock would already be dead. The branch clearly has a plethora of potential hosts at its disposal, yet it stays with Brock. This is intriguing.” He turns and grins at them over his shoulder. “Klyntar feed, destroy, spawn, and move on. You must be dealing with a rebel. Perhaps a star crossed lovers type of situation. It’s almost romantic.” 

“Great, that’s - really interesting. But we’re trying to find out if they’re a serial killer who may or may not be eating people, and - “ 

“Oh, almost definitely,” Thor says without hesitation. “As I said before, Brock alone would not be able to sustain it indefinitely. He has a limited amount of mass, and generally, they live on chemicals that can only be found in living creatures. It would be logical to assume if people are dying, they could be responsible for it. They must be supplementing their diet somehow, after all.”

Tony feels - weird. Disappointed? He can’t wrap his head around the emotion leaving a weird taste in his mouth. Natasha is nodding and seems like she expected it, but Steve looks heartbroken. Which is ridiculous, because it’s not like Steve even had a chance to see any of the really heartwarming stuff, and even if he did, they all knew that it was unlikely this guy wasn’t involved somehow with the criminals’ disappearances. Too much adds up, especially considering the timestamps of Brock’s time out of the house that match up with the estimated times when the deaths occurred. He hasn’t shared that information with anyone else, because, to be far, plenty of people go out on Friday and Saturday nights that without any other proof it’s useless information. 

“We still don’t have any proof,” Bucky speaks up abruptly. “We can’t prove that Brock’s been killing people. How long does FRIDAY need to compile the videos we should still review?” 

“If we have just cause, we don’t really need to wait - “ 

“Do we?” Bucky asks. He seems genuinely curious. “Thor just admitted that this Klyntar is acting outside of their usual parameters. For all we know, the raw meat Brock’s been eating is an adequate substitution. Does Thor’s speculation count as just cause?” 

“Didn’t take you to be the type to play devil’s advocate, Barnes,” Tony says slowly. “Are you saying we need to watch more footage?” 

“If he isn’t, I am,” Bruce says firmly. “We’re already invading Brock’s privacy to a ludicrous extent - I, at least, refuse to go and bother the man unless we’re pretty damn sure he’s doing something wrong.” 

Natasha’s eyes close, and every inch of her is exuding displeasure. “I don’t see why we didn’t just approach him in the first place. Watching all of this has done nothing except waste our time.”

Tony tunes out again, because this is the ongoing argument between all Avengers, old and new - how much authority do we have? When do we step in? What are we accountable for? When should we back off? It’s been hashed and rehashed and fought over and picked apart, and they’re no closer to an answer now than they were back when they were dealing with the Accords. 

In this situation, with Brock, it’s hard to tell. The cameras were installed, originally, because they didn’t have time to do anything else. In a perfect world, Brock would’ve been caught eating someone on screen and some of them could go and arrest him, remove the symbiote if it was still in the picture, and then make him anyone else’s problem. Ignoring his privacy would’ve been justifiable, because he was /eating people/ (or at least murdering them), and no one would really fight the Avengers on doing something that had to be done as long as there were results in the end. 

Now, they’re treading a gray area. Because Brock hasn’t done or admitted to doing anything on screen, they don’t have the evidence that would justify their surveillance. Which leaves them in legal limbo, because they’re not law enforcement, where they would have authority to do so legally, and they’re not really private citizens either, where they would get arrested. If this was the early 2000’s where Tony was The Only Superhero, he would just delete the footage if he didn’t find anything and go confront Brock, pretending it never existed in the first place. Realistically, no agency (other than maybe SHIELD, but even that was unlikely) would find out about him ignoring legality if technology was involved. Or if they could, they wouldn’t care enough to, because Tony always played ball. They scratch his back, he’d scratch theirs, and they had a good system going. 

And then everyone else had to start copying him and becoming superheroes too, and when they needed formal rules, no one stepped up and everything became messy. Every single government in the entire world (and some not on the world, now) hates their guts for trodding on their toes constantly because dumbasses like Rogers and Thor do what they want, constantly, and ignore the consequences. So when Tony wants to ignore the consequences of his own actions because what he’s doing is justified and backed by the intelligence FRIDAY has (that she really shouldn’t, but there aren’t really laws in place for artificial citizens and Tony has exploited that loophole since JARVIS’s first forays into the world), he’s not allowed to anymore both because he’s no longer BFFs with the US of A and because he needs to set an example for the heroes that are way worse at politics than he is. 

It’s exhausting, is what it is. When and how much do they have to justify their actions? Who watches the watchkeepers, or whatever that saying is. If the Accords had gone through - 

“Alright, so what are we going to do?” Tony says loudly, cutting his own thoughts off. He can only handle so much introspection and what-if’s at a time. “What’s everyone’s current position on the Brock matter? Even before watching all of this, I’d argue we had enough reasonable suspicion to justify going to talk to him. To investigate in person a little. But - even if we wanted to - we still don’t really have the manpower to investigate a lot on a ‘maybe’.” He jerks his head at the screen. “I don’t want to get into a fight with that without enough back up. Especially if its preferred soup du jour is human blood.” 

Instead of answering, Bruce asks, “FRIDAY, is there any footage where killing or, uh, eating people is discussed?” 

It’s - Well. 

Duh. 

Why didn’t he think of that. 

Sometimes, he really loves Bruce’s pragmatism. He wants to ask why Bruce waited until now to suggest that, but he doesn’t want to be caught out for not thinking of it until now either. 

FRIDAY, after a brief pause, says, “There are two instances. Want me to play them?” 

Tony says, “Pretty please, baby girl.”

Everyone turns to watch as the screen switches to the entryway camera, where Anne and Dan are standing, like they’re about to leave. Brock looks sheepish and is rubbing the back of his neck. 

“ - to lose weight, Eddie, it’s concerning!” Anne says earnestly. “You’re eating for two now - do you need to - you know, people? When’s the last time Venom ate someone’s hea - ?” 

“Hey, whoa,” Brock makes an “X” with his arms. “No talking about that when we know you both have Siri turned on in your phones. It’s always listening, you know.” 

Anne rolls her eyes. “Your paranoia is ridiculous.” 

“You said that about what we thought was up with Drake, and we were right about that. We wouldn’t put it past Steve Jobs to hoard dirt on every iPhone user on the planet.” 

Dan suddenly looks crushed. “Wait, does that - You’re saying that like you wouldn’t be happy to get an Alexa for Christmas.” 

Brock looks equally crushed at having caused Dan any pain. Who can blame him, honestly, Dan Lewis has a face that's just asking to be squished by grandmas everywhere. “Aw, man, I - look, they’re always listening. It’s freaky, and with Venom, we can’t risk the men in black - ” 

“No no, it makes sense. It’s fine.” Dan has the exact look on his face that Tony had when Pepper said she didn’t want a fifty-foot tall rabbit plush toy. 

“Anyway,” Brock continues. “All that you and Siri need to know is that we’re healthy and only eating food that can be procured legally.” After a pause, he adds, “And is procured legally.” 

“ **Despite our attempts otherwise,** ” the symbiote chimes in, rising up from Brock’s shoulder. “ **We only purchase food legally. We give currency to Mrs. Chen and she provides us with chocolate. Sometimes not enough, but -** ” 

Brock says, wryly, “The kleptomania’s a work in progress.” 

The screen pauses, staying on Brock’s wry grin and Venom’s toothy smirk. The conversation is close to damning, but any lawyer worth their salt would be able to swing an explanation that isn’t murder. It’s just their luck that Brock is one of twelve people in America who know and care about Siri/Alexa/Google Home’s constant listening. 

He probably doesn’t use Facebook either, the little shit. Rhodey would approve, but Rhodey - 

Tony scratches his head hard enough to dislodge those thoughts, as FRIDAY says, “That’s the end of the first clip. Would you like me to play the next one?” 

He waves ambiguously, which she, rightfully, takes as an affirmative. He’s proud of how far she’s come in the past few years - even a year ago, and she would’ve had to double check what he meant by that. She’s growing up fast. 

The clip starts with Brock running into the apartment, gagging while he slams the door shut behind him. Venom is swirling around him, appearing equally distressed. Its tendrils are spiky and frantic, patting Brock everywhere even as Brock tries to slap him away. 

“ **What’s wrong, we don’t understand, we don’t know -** “ 

There’s a few minutes of them flailing until, finally, Brock chokes up some kind of debris. The lights aren’t on in the apartment, so it’s indistinguishable from the rest of the crap that he never picks up. That being said, whatever it is - it’s larger and harder than anything that should have been able to fit down a human throat. Like. Easily the size of Brock’s arm. The way it comes out of Brock’s throat makes Tony sympathy-gag, because that’s. It’s huge. 

“Is it - ?” Natasha squints. “I think that’s a bone.”

“Can you tell what kind?” 

“A spine? Maybe a femur. I can’t tell. It’s not from any neighborhood pets, that’s for sure.” 

“Okay, see!” Brock points at it, infuriated. “We can’t do that! This was so much easier before you were back because they didn’t need to be alive, fuck - You know our stomach can’t digest that! We’ve tried, it doesn’t work - God, this isn’t good, this is bad this is - ” 

“ **It’s not our fault it was squirmy,** ” The symbiote argues, but it’s still bristly and sounds a little guilty. “ **We -** “ 

“We need to be more careful about how big of a bite we take or else they’ll know it wasn’t a normal human - you know I hate having to cover it up, why do you have to be so fucking greedy - ?” 

“ **We’re hungry!** ” 

“We’re always hungry!” Brock shouts, threading his hands in his hair. “I know, okay? I know. We’re always hungry, we’re always fucking hungry, and I’m trying, babe, okay? I’m trying. But we don’t exactly have a society where it’s easy to get live food.” 

“ **We can do anything we want,** ” The symbiote says, sounding lost. “ **We can, Eddie, we can do anything, we can -** “ 

His fingers tighten around his hair and tug. “Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. And you know we’re pushing the boundaries of my moral code as far as they can stretch already. I can’t go any further, babe, I - “ 

“ **I know** ,” It soothes, intertwining with Brock’s fingers. “ **I know. You give so much for us. Perfect Eddie, perfect perfect perfect perfect perfect. So sweet.** ” 

They sit in near-silence, the symbiote breaking it to whisper sweet nothings every once in awhile. Finally, Brock’s hands release his hair and he leans back against the door, swiping at his eyes. 

“Honey, everything that Drake did to you before we bonded - being in a lab like that? Trapped and experimented on? That will happen again, and it will be worse, if we get caught. If the wrong people find out about you. Drake worshipped you and the other symbiotes, so he was as close to kind as he could get but - the next scientists won’t. We’re strong, but we’re not the strongest. You’ve seen the Avengers on TV. If we’re a threat, they’ll separate us and - “ 

“ **We’re good!** ” It protests immediately. “ **We make bad guys go away, they should be thanking us!** ” 

Brock gnaws on his lip. “Yeah, I dunno if they’d go for that. Not with the xenophobic shit that’s been going on since the last invasion. Hell, Stark’s righteous bull means he’ll set us on fire without stopping to make sure we were actually doing anything wrong if he thinks we’ve even looked at a human funny.” He shudders and wraps his arms around himself. “I don’t want to lose you. Us. It’s too important. So just. I need you to try harder. It’s hard for me too, you know.” 

It morosely says, “ **I know. Sorry Eddie.** ” 

“It’s okay, sweetie.” Brock squeezes himself tighter and tilts his head back, eyes closing. “Love you.” 

“ **Love you too.** ” 

The clip looks like it’s paused, until Brock’s lips twitch and he mumbles, “Love us more.” 

The symbiote perks up from his fingers and disappears into his skin. It reappears at his neck, pressing against his cheek like a faceless kiss. “ **Love us lots more** .” 

The video stops there, and they’re all quiet for a few moments. 

Natasha claps her hands together, startling everyone. “If those conversations weren’t poorly hiding allusions to cannibalism, I’ll eat Cap’s cap.” 

“He didn’t - “ Steve starts weakly, before sighing and nodding. “Yeah. I’d eat it too.” 

Bruce says, “Bite marks make more sense than the other ideas that coroners had. They likely ruled it out because only a shark or something bigger could take that big of a bite.” 

“Coroners didn’t know if organs were missing, though,” Tony counters. “How can they not know? If Brock’s epic love story involves chomping on people, wouldn’t it be relatively simple to see where he took a chunk out of them?” 

Natasha, without hesitation, says, “Meat grinder would do it. Or a lot of determination and some time - with the symbiote’s abilities, less time than I’d need. Brock mentioned hating have to ‘cover it up’, remember?” 

Tony, admittedly, has had worse conversations, but he’d still love for this particular topic to end and therefore hurries to change the subject. “Alright, so, nothing explicit was said, but. Throwing up a spine - “ 

“Could’ve been a femur,” Thor reminds him. 

  
“ - or a femur, whatever, a BIG fucking bone - the point is, he ate something that could conceivably be human and proceeded to vomit some curious bits back up. What now?” 

Natasha, delicately tapping her nose, says, “Who’s going to San Francisco?” 

Tony Stark is one of the smartest assholes on the planet. His brain makes connections faster than just about anyone else, yet every god-fucking-damn time one of the Avengers calls “nose-goes” he is SOL. It’s almost like the rest of them are superhumans while he’s a measly mortal.  

“God damn it!” He nearly shrieks, looking at everyone else in the room. “You too?” 

Even Bucky, who has more than a few screws loose, is tapping his nose gently. Nose goes fucking sucks. 


End file.
